What does your garage say about you? People say that the clothes make the man, or that you are what you drive, and there are a million or so other cheesy sayings just like those that will apparently tell us all that we need to know about you. Yeah, right. How about “What does your garage say about you?” I think that would be a far more telling peek into who you are than your choose of shoes or jacket. This garage's owner is at least slightly noncommittal! He can't decide if he actually wants his car in there or not, so he leaves space for it that never actually gets used. The couch is conspicuously uncovered meaning he might like to use it sometime, but its awkward positioning means he probably never actually does. Somewhere between cluttered and functional, this garage manages to be neither! So what does your garage say about you? Is there a polyaspartic floor coating inlaid with flaming skulls or maybe a glossy black concrete stain? Did you go for a minimal industrial floor coating and concrete counters, or perhaps there’s zebra stripes and...

Hot Rod, Street Rods and Customs Pack Pomona (click on any picture to see it full size) In all the years I've been going to the LA Roadster Show, I've always attended the SoCal Speed Shop's open house car show on the Friday night before the Roadster Show. By about 4PM on Friday, everyone's already setup their swap spaces and scoped out the early deals, so besides grabbing a bite, there's not much else to do except see some great local custom hot rods and see what Jimmy Shine and the other builders are up to at the shop. Outside the shop, the streets are lined with hot rods and customs like this 49 Buick Sedanette. Out of all the cars I saw this weekend, this Buick was one of my favorites. It was for sale too. Got an extra $45k? Much like the high style and high dollar cars found at the LA Roadster Show, SoCal brings in some of the finest hot rod examples to be found in all of California... and farther. They normally have at least one Billy Gibbons project going on, and he's, "Bad,...

Hot Rod Roadsters - Only the Pretty Ones at 2011 LA Roadster Show (click on any picture to see it full size) I mentioned in the 2011 LA Roadster Show kick-off story there's three parts of the show: the "Proper" roadster show, the "other" cars (also the part I like best!) and the swap meet. I'd say there's four parts if you include the Pomona SoCal Speed Shop open house. We'll cover all of those for you at MyRideisMe.com! Stay tuned and check back often! As you can see, there was no shortage of custom hot rods at the show. The key difference for the LA Roadster Show is of course, they all must be roadsters. The strict definition is "no roll up windows" but who cares! If the top comes off, it's a roadster to me. By the afternoon, the sky had finally cleared from its dreary (and miserable to photograph!) gray color and was showing a beautiful blue sky. Isn't this what we always think of for California? The few Model T's and late 30's and 40's roadsters were easy to spot and served to break up...

Custom Hot Rods Rock the LA Roadsters Back again! For the 5th year, this is one of the best hot rod and custom car shows you'll see, in California, or maybe anywhere. It's easy to see why this show's a success: The Roadster Show "proper" - finished, shiny painted no-roof cars only The "Other" cars... every other custom car in So-cal, pre '75, want'n a primo parking spot A freakin HUGE swap meet!! (if this doesn't get yer motor turn'n... move on now) Make your way to Pomona, make sure to Learn the NEW LA Roadster Show layout and enjoy what we found... 2011 LA Roadsters Show Here's how the day starts for most people attending the LA Roadster Show. It's a massive line. We arrived at about 3:30AM on Friday morning (no we're not psycho, that's just when we arrived from AZ!) and were in the 5th line. Each line was about 1/2 mile long with trucks, trailers and RV's filled with swap'n goodies. It's not long before you realize... you might see just about anything... Look closely, that's a right hand driver Chevy Ute. When's the last...

Cool Hot Rods and Customs from Australia It wasn't easy, but after 6 cell calls and struggling through the crowds at 2011 Viva Las Vegas, I finally met up with Luke Ray, the creative mind behind Fuel Magazine. Fuel Magazine's all about the hot rods, custom cars, bikes and oh yes... the girls that make Australia's scene one not to miss. Available in the traditional styled "Small book" format, it's a very high quality publication where no expense is spared on printing. The latest issue, #07 is "'The Customs Issue". Luke figured it'd be cool to do a customs biased issue, seeing as there are so many cool custom cars here in Australia. Sounds great to me... my book's in the mail. Luke also features some of the world's greatest artists. Here's a quick sample that's not so coincidentally pretty friendly on the eyes. One of these days, I'll go see first hand. Until then, preview Fuel Magazine Issue #7 here: Buy Australian Hot Rod Magazine: Fuel Have you seen Fuel before? Let us know what you...

What's New for the 2011 LA Roadster Show Looking for show coverage for 2011? Try these links! First Pictures from 2011 LA Roadster Show Shiny and Finished – Inside the 2011 LA Roadster Show SoCal Pomona’s Open House – Nothing to See Here There's few shows not to miss. One of them is the LA Roadster Show in Pomona, CA. This is the 47th car show for the Los Angeles Roadsters Car Club and this year's Father's Day Weekend,  June 18th-19th. If you're planning to attend, you should know about a major layout changes so you don't get lost on the way in. Spectators: The biggest change is for spectators. This year, you'll be parking in the Blue Lot off White Avenue through Gate #9. If you've ever been to the Grand National Roadster Show, it's the same for that show. There's a bus/trolley available to help you get back and forth, or you can make the short walk through the tunnel. It's a long walk from the parking lot and the Roadster Show Parking/Vendors area over to Specialty Parking and the Swap Meet so make sure you jump...

Mesa, Arizona Cruise Night Permanently Canceled - The Real Story If you'd never been, you were missing out! And now it's too late. Rather than sit and park, Lance Baker from HotRodPlanet.com, an Arizona show promoter and hot rod enthusiast, restarted a Mesa, Arizona cruising tradition on Main Street. With great weather nearly all the time, it seemed like a sure hit, but it didn't last. With rumors flying as to why the cruise got canceled, Lance decided to set the record straight. So in Lance's words: CRUISIN' ON MAIN STREET IN MESA Contrary to the mutiple and ridiculous rumors that are floating around, here are the facts of why the cruise on Main Street was cancelled - at least from the vantage point of Hot Rod Planet: From the November fund raiser event we did for the Mesa PD Honor Guard - NO - the moron on the motorcycle that did a wheelie in front of the crowd, crashing, and then hitting the young girl sitting on the curb - DID NOT RESULT in any lawsuits towards our organization. The young girl was fine in the end and...

Paint Review - Phoenix Custom Paint Shop to Avoid! You're not looking at an artistic interpretation of the state of West Virginia, you're looking at the terrible paint work by a company in Phoenix, Arizona called "Terrific Paint and Customs". When you start a project, one of the biggest things you need to decide is a budget. Because my four-door, Ford Falcon wagon was never going to be a high-dollar car, no matter what I did to it, I didn't want to spend a fortune on paint. I did want something shiny that I could be proud of, but I knew that getting a great paint job, or "Show Quality" was not in my budget. That's when I started looking for a "driver" quality paint shop.  I found a Craigslist ad and gave the guy a call. He sounded cool enough, knowledgeable, and his ad said, "15 year experience". I sent a bunch of pictures of my Falcon, we talked and sent way too many texts about all the things I wanted to do and he said $1800 and it'd be done in about 3 weeks. (keep that in...

Vintage Camaros, Mustangs, Chargers and AMC's on the Track MyRideisMe.com doesn't normally publish press releases, but since this is a track near and dear to me, I had to... plus, this just looks like a blast! 2011 Tour Begins with Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival, Infineon Raceway Los Angeles (May 16, 2011) -  The Big Boys are back June 3-5, 2011, at the Sonoma Historic Motorsports Festival, being held at Infineon Raceway, Sonoma, CA. Bring the entire family for a day of incredible racing with the Historic Trans AM Racing Group. Featuring the original cars, the excitement and the noise you remember from the late ‘60s and early 70s Trans Am series. This exhibition race will bring back memories of the glory days of road racing. The original series drove auto makers to go faster, be louder and better than their competitors. Detroit’s battle cry of “Win on Sunday, Sell on Monday” correctly labeled an escalating new-car marketplace demanding affordable, high-performance automobiles, and the most popular American road racing series of all time. The Trans-Am Series thrilled racing enthusiasts four decades ago and significantly helped to change America’s mainstream automobile...

World Wide Hot Rods and Custom Cars Documentary Dirk Behlau, noted "Kool Lifestyle" photographer and long time friend of MyRideisMe.com (he let us use a picture when we had about 20 visitors a day...) and custom pinstriper and artist Jesper Bram are workin on a worldwide panoramic of hot rods and custom cars along with the people who make the Kustom Kulture. In their words, "Dirk and Jesper will spend a year going from California through Europe and end-up in Japan in search of the coolest Kustom Kulture people and events on the planet. Picking the brains of living legends, up and coming artists and builders within the kustom kulture." The adventure will include some of the worlds best car and motorcycle builders, tattoo artists, pinstripers, custom painters and pin-up models to share their tricks and experience. Have I peaked your interest then?  If so, check out this teaser video: [vimeo]http://vimeo.com/23927615[/vimeo] Then get a closer look at one of Dirk's photo shoots... hey Dirk, where's the pinup model?![vimeo]http://vimeo.com/23954070[/vimeo] Dirk already publish a killer book called "Speed Kings" and we'll be after Jesper for a pinstriping story to see his...

100+ Hot Rods and Custom Cars Story and Photos by Royboy Productions Wow! What can I saw about John Well's Vintage Torque Fest!? Great show sums it up succinctly, but that doesn’t do justice to this event, car show, music festival, drive-in, bus racing, motorcycle racing exhibition, hot laps with the show cars… and all to benefit helpinghannahsheart.org! Here’s my Royboy Production story of Vintage Torque Fest 2011. 4:30am came early on Friday, I'm not a morning person but I was on a mission! The forecast was for rain on Saturday but since the show started at noon on Friday I planned on getting there and getting some shots in of all the folks that showed up Friday. 600 miles behind me I arrived at Vintage Torque Fest at the Jackson County Fairgrounds in Maquoketa, Iowa. Friday's drive was no time for enjoying my travel like normal, it was 80mph for 9 hours... and it was sooooo worth it! There was a good turn out on Friday, ton's of cool cars and some of my favorite folks showed up. The Oliver Built Group out of Des Moines was out...

Drag Racing Art by Liz Northrup Liz Northrup is an artist and true hot rod and drag racing enthusiast. This article is written by her and features her newest hot rod art piece, the legendary "Motown Missile". -pikesan In the midst of looking for ideas on a project, I was referred to seek help from a fellow artist named Bill Stinson. Interestingly, I’ve learned that Bill has a unique past as a writer and cartoon artist for various hot rod magazines such as, ISCA's ‘Show Stopper’, ‘CARtoons’, and the original ‘Hot Rod DeLuxe’. Bill currently writes for ‘Cruis’news magazine’. Bill was kind enough to send me a few pictures of some of the most legendary drag cars in history. Out of that collection,  one car in particular caught my interest: the Motown Missile, a ‘70 Dodge Challenger. Being a Mopar fan, I was intrigued to learn more of it’s story. Bill is friends with Ted Spehar, who owned and built the Motown Missile. Teddy (as Bill likes to call him) is a master in building high performance engines and had extraordinary success with the Chrysler Hemi’s. Teddy was commissioned...